Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com
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Our own in Fort Mac
I agree with those who write that we should do at least as much for our own in Fort McMurray as we do for strangers around the world (Help For Fort Mac – letters, May 6). Our own needy (homeless) can live on the street, our First Nations people live in Third World conditions.
Canada has a long history of neglecting its own. I was hopeful that Justin Trudeau would be different.
Larson Heinonen, Sudbury, Ont.
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A letter writer says the federal government will spend more than $1-billion to aid refugees but the best it can do for Fort Mac is to match Red Cross donations. The millions that the government will spend to match Red Cross donations are in addition to the billions in federal disaster relief that will be spent for Fort McMurray.
To use the victims of both the Alberta wildfires and the war in Syria (some of whom are Fort Mac residents, too) to attack the government of Canada is unbecoming and un-Canadian. Didn't we leave that divisiveness behind in October?
Ali Weisenberg, Kingston
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Justin Trudeau would do a lot for himself, his Liberal Party and our country, if he dumped the idea of spending billions of dollars on fighter bombers, and instead spent the money as quickly as possible on desperately needed water bombers.
Mel Hurtig, Vancouver
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How many more fires, floods and other weather-related disasters are we going to experience and witness before one can acknowledge climate change's ugly role without being slammed?
The people of Fort McMurray and surrounding area, and any place hit by natural disaster, need our full support. No question. But unless we take effective action to reduce emissions and build more resilient communities, we are going to see and experience more and more extreme climate events like the one taking place in northern Alberta.
Cheryl McNamara, Toronto
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Now that's embarrassing politics
Re Premier Cleared Of Conflict (May 5): British Columbia allows corporate donations to political parties. Most of that money goes to Christy Clark's Liberal Party.
Ms. Clark, in turn, receives a $50,000 annual top-up to her six-figure premier's salary from the Liberal Party, which also pays her a salary and which, according to The Globe, gets a good share of its funds from (wait for it) corporate donations.
British Columbia is one of the last holdouts allowing unlimited corporate donations, as well as private Liberal fundraising dinners where those same corporations get to sit down with the Premier. We are rapidly becoming a laughing stock. If this is not a conflict of interest then we need to change the law, or the conflicts commissioner, or both.
Daniel McLeod, Vancouver
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Breaking news! Senator Mike Duffy and Premier Christy Clark did nothing wrong.
John Royall, West Vancouver
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Dip into the cash stash and hire
I understand the taxpayer's responsibility for educating students, because society as a whole benefits greatly from its citizens being educated. However, I don't understand why the taxpayer should be responsible for on-the-job training at businesses, a responsibility that corporations have been willing to shoulder in the past (Experiential Learning, Agile Employees: Let's Put A Hands-on Generation To Work – Report on Business, May 3).
Many corporations seem content to sit on their piles of cash (while the province that funds postsecondary education is running large deficits) and invest only minimally in hiring – or even in research and development, which has been declining in Canada. Meanwhile they demand lower corporate taxes, free labour in the form of internships and co-op placements, and emergency-level interest rates that eat away at the average person's savings.
The emergency was over long ago, and Ontario's universities and colleges have continued to produce grads who can plan, communicate, work in teams, and solve problems. Corporations need to start expanding their businesses by investing their own funds in imaginative, strategic hiring. More people mean more ideas and hence more innovation.
Robin Waugh, Waterloo, Ont.
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An accolade to bland
Re Bland Still Works (editorial, May 5): Back in the days when John Tory, now Toronto's mayor, was president of Rogers Cable, I received a phone call one Christmas morning from him after writing a letter of complaint about our cable service.
I was seated in the living room in my pyjamas in the midst of unwrapping a present when he phoned and I just sat there while he went on about agreeing with my remarks completely. That morning, I honestly couldn't tell whether he was an obsessive micromanager, passive aggressive or just a genuinely nice guy. After he finished, I didn't give him a hard time but just wished him a Merry Christmas. Phew!
Jim Heller, Toronto
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Keep me posted?
Re Task Force To Determine Future Of Canada Post's Home Delivery (May 6): Should we keep door-to-door mail delivery? That's a tough one. I'll send an e-mail when I come up with my answer.
Terry Toll, Campbell's Bay, Que.